Sutphen's contribution to sailing worth noting

Dennis Conner is best known for bringing the America's Cup to San Diego.

However, I've always believed that the America's Cup is but one of two treasures Conner is responsible for importing to our city.

The sport of sailing in San Diego is much better since Jack Sutphen came west in late 1979 to assist Conner's first America's Cup campaign as a skipper.

I'm biased, though. I love the man. I love to listen to him talk. He always mentions accomplishments in “we,” never taking definitive credit for anything.

But when you put Jack's accomplishments on paper, it's a long list – and a fun read.

I know this because Jack has authored a book – “Messing Around In Boats For 80 Years.”

Published by the Classic Yacht Foundation, Sutphen's book is not a difficult read. But it is a delightful one – a compilation of snippets from a fascinating life chronicled by some great pictures.

If you want to get a true reading of Sutphen, flip to page 88 before reading a word. If a picture could detail the 80 years, this is the one. Taken about a decade ago, it shows Sutphen and the late Joe Jessop sailing in a 9-foot Dyer dinghy.

Sutphen, who was approximately 80 when the photo was shot, is the kid in the boat by some dozen years – which raised some questions with Jessop's physician when he saw the picture hanging in Jessop's house.

“What would you and Jack do if you turned over?” asked the doctor. “Probably hang onto the boat until somebody picks us up,” Jessop said.

Sutphen recalls that put the end to his and Jessop's dinghy outings. It is also the 33rd and final story in his 94-page book.

Do I wish there were more? Absolutely. Was I disappointed? Absolutely not.

You have to know how Sutphen came to be an associate of Conner to fully understand how special this man is. Few in the history of sports has taken one for the team more graciously than Sutphen.

Late in the summer of 1974, Courageous was struggling to dispatch the San Diego-based and Gerry Driscoll-skippered Intrepid in the America's Cup defense trials off Newport, R.I.

At the 11th hour, the upstart Conner – who had gone from assisting Ted Turner to replacing him on the helm of the ill-fated Mariner earlier in the trials – was asked to come aboard Courageous to assist Ted Hood as the boat's starting helmsman and tactician.

The tactician booted off the boat was Sutphen.

Sutphen was naturally “disappointed” to lose his job on Courageous.

But he didn't let that disappointment affect his love for the event, sailing or the demands of being part of a team. Which is why five years later, Conner asked Sutphen to join him in Newport at the start of the Freedom campaign of 1980.

Sutphen drove the trial horse Enterprise in 1980. For the next 15 years, he helped drive the test boats against Conner's America's Cup boats off San Diego.

There is absolutely no glory in being a trial horse crewman in an America's Cup campaign. The job can be equated to that of being a crash-test dummy. You do the work, but reap none of the glory.

But Sutphen's “B Team” crew distinguished themselves under the banner of “The Mushrooms.” Their slogan was “live in the dark, get fed manure and be ready to be canned at any time.”

And while the Mushrooms and the America's Cup are a major part of Sutphen's saga, they make for a fraction of the 80 years.

It's neither a long nor difficult read. But the book carries a lot of smiles.

Miscellany

The Crew Classic rowing regatta will be April 4-5 this year on east Mission Bay, with the finish line again along Crown Point Shores.

Bay Fair will go on as scheduled next September, but possibly without the Unlimited Hydroplanes. The event and the Unlimited Hydroplane sanctioning body could be at an impasse when it comes to terms.